5 Ways To Control Your Anger By Practicing Stoicism

For as long as there have been people, they’ve been doing wrong things because they were angry. Anger is easy. It can feel good.

The great Stoic philosophers wrote about dealing with their temperament more than any philosophical school.

For as long as there have been people, they’ve been trying to manage their anger issues. What we have below are some proven strategies to tame our temper.

1. Identify The Cost Of Your Anger

First, we urge you to search online what anger does to people. Embarrassing, right? Do you think you look so different in your fits of anger?

What has anger cost you? Think of specific incidents in which you turned to anger. When you took personal offence for something, you said something out of anger and a business blew up. What relationship deteriorated because of something you did in anger?

When costs are exposed, we are less likely to give in to anger.

Also See: 5 Stoicism Practices

2. Identify What Is In Your Control Versus What Isn’t

There were many reasons for Anne Frank to be angry. She had had to leave her friends in Germany and her friends in Amsterdam. She had been subjected to discrimination and persecution. Her family had lost her business. Now they were all huddled together in a small attic where they couldn’t make noise, could barely move and were constantly at risk of death from exposure or illness.

However, she wrote in her diary on May 3, 1944: “They have given me a lot: a happy nature, a lot of joy and strength. Every day I feel like I am developing internally. Why, then, should I be desperate?

This is the essence of what the Stoics spoke: to make the distinction between what is under our control and what is not. We do not control what happens around us: the world at war, the details of our birth, the vagaries of our life situation, that some person is awful to us, or that someone harmed us. We have the power to control how we respond. We have the power to control who we are on the inside. We have the power to focus on all the gifts that have been given to us.

Also Enjoy: 5 Stoic Philosophy That Leads You to Live a Happy and Peaceful Life

3. Don’t Be Mad In Advance

There is a balance in stoicism between awareness and anxiety. Stoics want you to be prepared for an uncertain and often dangerous future, but somehow not worry about it at the same time. They want you to consider all the possibilities… and know that many of those possibilities won’t be good. How exactly is that supposed to work?

The point is that the future is out of our control. It is uncertain, and also vast. We have to be aware of that, yes, but we don’t need to suffer, particularly not beforehand. Because we have a lot of time to prepare, and also a lot of present open to us as well.

Also Worth a Look: 5 Easy Ways to Learn Stoicism

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